"That again presents a clever scheme by which everyone can avoid blame for everything, just have every choice be made by a majority vote and trust that with a large enough electorate it'll never be decided by only a single voter.

Collective responsibility must in some way be the sum of individual responsibilities, just like the collective wealth of a city is the sum of everyones individual wealths. We can't pin it all on Codwin, if he couldn't've done it without all of us helping."

"Fair enough. So this is a terrible thing that's happening, and the fact it is happening is at least partially your fault, just like it's at least partially the fault of everyone else who gets any say in the matter, which over here is every adult citizen and over there is just Abrogail the second.

What choices are you doubting, exactly? If Andoran hadn't chosen to cross whatever line you think made Cheliax do all of this, Cheliax would've kept buying slaves, and abusing people, and maledicting anyone who fights back. You'd have got a tiny bit of say in that too, in that you could've voted to start a war about it, and therefore you'd have been very slightly responsible for every person so damned and all their eternal torture, and that seems pretty terrible too.

Not that you could've actually caused that, since the rest of Andoran was still going to vote for this instead, and your non-participation probably wouldn't have changed anything except made the rest of Andoran a bit more alone when the fighting started."

Why does it feel like answering the question isn't a permissible action?

Like the part of his mind that makes decisions has a list of decision-outputs it can produce, and "answer the question" isn't on the list.

"We still could've done it differently. Started it later. Found more allies first, maybe. We'd win far more easily if we had Taldor's backing, and we don't, and that's because of choices we've made that no one forced on us."

"Hey, I know who you are! You're that guy who got his head eaten by a pit fiend, aren't you? Did they bring you back already?"

Crap. There goes a whole lot of deniability.

"First batch of Raise Deads."

"I can see why you'd be re-evaluating your life choices if they got your head eaten by a pit fiend, although that wouldn't be my first guess since it seems to have worked out okay. Did you lose someone important to you?"

If it worked out okay why does his head hurt so much.

If he's not going to be being honest, then clearly this conversation is a game, and he should be trying to win by figuring out what he wants the other person to think and then what words he needs to say to cause them to think that. His head hurts too much to do that properly, but he can at least give a half-hearted attempt and hope it's good enough.

He'll gesture at the entire city.

"A plausible answer. Since I've heard of you and already know you're a cleric, could I ask some advice?"

"Sure."

Quick, gotta rebuild a mental model of how Tettian clerics are expected to behave so I can manipulate this person into reaching useful conclusions. Oh wait I forgot to generate what conclusions I'm trying to cause this person to reach and now it's too late.

"I'm a cleric too, see, of Desna, and sometimes She shows me in dreams some people who could use my help. So I go up to those people and try and ask what's wrong, and sometimes they pretend there's nothing wrong or else lie about what their problems are, so as to stop me from helping them, and then I don't know what to do.

Got any tips?"

Sense Motive.

Either the Raise Dead has rendered you as bad at finding lies as you are at telling them, or she's being honest, including in the implication.

This is what happens when you try to impersonate a normal person while having a headache, idiot. What's the winning strategy? Confess because he can't defend against divine interventions? Double down? Try to invent a plausible fake problem fast enough that he can use it as a diversion and then escape?

"That's a pretty good one you've got already, hope you don't mind if I steal it."

"There's a few general categories of distrust they could be falling into, I think.

Firstly that the information needed to help them could also be used to hurt them, and far more easily, and if they've had more experiences of strangers hurting compared to helping, they'll assume that any new stranger is also doing that and wants to keep the information a secret.

Secondly, if they haven't solved the problem already they'd have to think it's pretty hard, so probably you can't fix it either, so it's all risk for no hope of reward and they'd be better off being quiet.

Thirdly, if the information implies anything negative about them personally, such as that they have a problem they can't solve and are therefore pitiable, and if they strongly care about the opinions of strangers, they'll not want to tell you just to preserve their pride, even if the only person they're preserving it to is themselves."

"For the first case, my first thought is to provide extremely strong proof you wouldn't do that, and wouldn't give their secrets to anyone who would, but probably most people doing that are doing it on instinct and not evidence and aren't trying to be persuaded.

If they're much dumber than you or just temporarily brain-damaged you could probably trick them into telling you their problems, although you might not want a reputation for doing that. Otherwise offering bribes or leverage should work more often, people will more easily trust someone they have some amount of control over, even if it's just the ability to hurt your reputation back by revealing some harmful secret about you.

For the second case, if you've got a list of problems you've helped with and are free to talk about, and maybe some references who can swear to your honour and capability, that'd probably convince most people in the same reference class that you can help. Probably though it'd be very difficult to get peoples personal issues into a standard format that you could write on a list.

The third case is probably hardest, ideally you'd have some curse that makes you forget everything, or else lots of expensives Modify Memory spells, but if you're a Desnan you could probably substitute just being someone who's predictibly going to leave for somewhere else soon and not come back."

There, see, that was some very Tettian advice, nothing wrong with this guy at all.

"Is there a curse that makes you, I should be very specific, makes you unable to remember anything told to you in confidence except when in a room alone with the person who told it to you? Or at least unable to reveal anything so told to you?

I'm not really planning on leaving Andoran for a while, sorry, although it's a good thought.

I'd have to say I'm disappointed by the rest of your suggestions though, there's a much easier option that you've failed to notice and I expected better from someone who fights pit fiends."

"Bestow Curse is a pretty malleable spell, though it might need a Greater Bestow Curse.

I could probably invent one, although I'm bad at necromancy and probably wouldn't be able to cast it myself even if it did fit in the smaller spell until I've recovered from the Raise."

Actually, he knows someone who's almost certainly already invented that exact curse, if it's not completely impossible. He could just Sending her.

He could just Sending her and then pretend he invented it overnight just off of this person's request, which would make her think he's smart, which would mean he'd have won the interaction, right?

"What's the simpler option?"

"Walking stick. Take it everywhere I go."

Ah, see, now you're talking Robaldo's language. He should have noticed earlier, really. If you're in a social interaction and don't like it, there's an obvious universal solution.

Robaldo suddenly leaps to his feat and starts sprinting away.

You fool. You absolute buffoon. You think you can challenge me in my own realm? You think you can beat a Travel cleric in a foot race?

She'll outrun him, Dimensional Hop past him, and then trip him with her stick.

Robaldo's just a heartbroken, physically shattered man, recently returned from the dead, and you're hitting him with your walking stick.

In what possible sense of the word can you detect as Good?

In the Chaotic sense!

You will tell me your problems and then I will fix them! Even abstract emotional problems! You don't need to be able to trust me because I don't need to give you a choice!

If you didn't want this, Desna wouldn't've told me to do it. She's a Good god, you know.

He's still got his Teleport prepared, on his scaffold. Somehow it survived the Raise Dead without collapsing.

There's no way he could prepare it again now, with how much his head hurts, but he can still cast it.

He doesn't want to use it like this, where he can't bring all his valuables with him. But he will if he has to.

Is that a threat?

She'll start negotiating immediately, if it's a threat.

Of course, she could just Counterspell the teleport.

Why does a cleric of at least 5th circle think this is a good use of her afternoon?

She could be doing Raise Dead's herself.